When you are sick, one of the issues that you are bound to run across is an ever-growing pile of snotty tissues. We try to throw them out as they show up, but there will always be a few that get by us.

Let’s face it, snotty tissues are gross and any well-adjusted person would feel the same way. Perhaps that is why we are so surprised that a new company is making a business out of dirty tissues. They are even charging premium prices and people are buying.

The new startup is not your typical tissue company. Vaev Tissue is not in the business to sell soothing, soft tissues to their customers, they offer pre-used tissues through their service.

The ‘benefits’ they offer to their customers by selling them pre-snotted tissues is that it will make them sick. The Los Angeles-based Danish company claims that exposing yourself to their tissues will provide that service. They claim that exposing yourself to the tissue with the germs intact will build your immune system.

At the heart of each tissue sold by this company is a ‘hydrolayer’ of an actual human sneeze. They collect those sneezes from real people who are sick.

“We have a rotation of people who get sick for the production of this product,” company founder Oliver Niessen said.

“The rotation guarantees that we always have at least one person sick/available to help make more. That is how the process works.”

The company claims that one of the benefits of getting sick on purpose using their tissues is that it keeps you from getting sick at a less convenient time.

Vaev also makes another unusual claim on their website. They say that their tissues are “safer than needles or pills.”

Niessen spoke about his business, saying: “I mean, we customize everything in our lives and we have everything the way we want it, so why not approach sickness that way as well?”

By now you are probably thinking that this is all some type of elaborate joke. You may even be waiting for the punch line. Niessen is insistent that his company is no joke, even though some sketchy details were uprooted about the company. This includes the lack of a website or phone number.

Doctors were also interviewed about this trend and say that the claims are pure nonsense. A Northeast Ohio Medical University infectious disease expert said that the company is ‘a total waste of money’. He also referred to them as ‘bizarre’.

Another doctor said that there are hundreds of varieties of the common cold. If you were to expose yourself to one strain, it would not necessarily keep you from getting sick with another.

You are also putting your health at risk when you expose yourself to a virus, even if it is a mild one. You may have a severe reaction. That isn’t even to mention the question as to whether the germs could even survive the shipment to your home.

Even though there are a lot of questions about the company and the method, the reports are that Vaev has filled over 1000 orders it has been sold out for weeks.

No thank you.

Source: Time